Barkley Sosa of Riviera Beach, Florida finishes in last place in the pool. So she will receive her entry fee back, so that is $5 in dog treats for you. When asked to comment about this dubious honor by Your Tournament Host, Barkley responded, "My bracket has gone to the dogs ... literally." It seems as if a Final Four with a champion of Mississippi State Bulldogs, runner-up of UConn Huskies, and semi-finalists of Gonzaga Bulldogs and Yale Bulldogs, was not conducive to winning.
I should note that this will be the last comprehensive post on the tournament pool. After the Final Four I will update the standings, but no analysis or the like. I may also post some fun tidbits this week as well, but nothing lengthy or comprehensive. As Your Tournament Host will be traveling to San Antonio for the festivities, we will be pseudo-live blogging the trip right here, so you can still follow the adventures.
With Tennessee and Michigan State bowing out, we did lose two more champions, but entrants in the pool have selected each of the Final Four teams as champions, so we will see a lot of activity on the leaderboard this weekend. Our champions are: Alabama, AUBURN, Arizona, Connecticut, DUKE, FLORIDA, HOUSTON, Kansas, Marquette, Maryland, Michigan State, Mississippi State, Tennessee.
As for yesterday's games, Houston just absolutely bullied Tennessee, and Auburn practically did the same to Michigan State (but to a lesser extent). Neither game was really close, but they set up some fascinating match-ups as all four 1 seeds advance.
Trivia Question: Today we have multiple questions: How many times have all four 1 seeds advanced to the Final Four since the tournament expanded to 64 teams? When was the last time? Which teams advanced that year? Who won? Who was the MOP of that Final Four?
Stats of the Day
Although his play did not rise to the level of a "Player of the Day," I do want to mention Jahmai Mashack, who apparently was a recipient of the University of Tennessee's Torchbearer Award, the first male basketball player to win the award since 1953. The award is given to a student "who demonstrates leadership, academic excellence, and commitment to serve UT and the Knoxville community." It is the highest student honor awarded by the University of Tennessee, and is an award given to someone from the entire student body, not just athletics.
With all 1-seeds making the Final Four, you would think that it would be difficult to determine what tournament history I would like to regale us all, or at least one that was triggered by yesterday's games. But nope, it wasn't difficult at all, and it has nothing to do with the last time all four 1-seeds winning their respective regions. And, even though I always look for a reason to tell the JOAKIM NOAH IS UGLY story from 2006 (God do I LOVE this story), I have mentioned it before during the tourney - hence the link. So what could be the story related to yesterday's tourney games, one might ask. Well, I saw Terrance Arceneaux playing for Houston, which immediately triggered the question in my mind as to if he was related to another famous NCAA-playing Arceneaux. Turns out he is not. So that means that I get to tell the story of Harold "the Show" Arceneaux myself.
Harold Arceneaux was a 6'6" wing player for Weber State in Ogden, Utah from 1998-2000. He averaged 22.3 points and 6 rebounds in the '98-'99 season, and 23 points and 7.4 rebounds the following season. He had a career 51.1% shooting percentage from the floor, and he shot 35$ from three-point range. His first season at Weber State the team finished 25-8; and 13-3 in the Big Sky Conference; good enough for first place. Arceneaux was the team's leading scorer and second-leading reabounder; the unquestioned best player on a really good team that qualified for the NCAA Tournament with the Big Sky's automatic bid.
In the NCAA tournament, Weber State was given a 14-seed in the west, where it would meet perennial power North Carolina - the 3 seed. Back then all of the first and second round games were played in the geographical area of the region, and a such, North Carolina had to travel to Seattle Washington to face Weber State. By recognizable names, this was not one of UNC's more prominent teams, but Ed Cota was a fantastic point guard, and Brendan Haywood was a large, talented big man. Ademola Okulaia, Max Owens, and Kris Lang rounded out the starting five, and uber-athletic Ronald Curry - the QB on the football team, played big minutes off the bench. But from the get-go it was apparent that Weber State was not going to roll-over for the favorite Tar Heels.
Arceneaux was spectacular throughout, finishing with 36 points, including 5-7 from three point range, and chipped in 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal and 1 block. Eddie Gill was the only other Wildcat in double digits, as he scored 16. North Carolina meanwhile was led by the ever-present Ed Cota, who scored 20 points and dished 10 assists, while gathering 4 rebounds. Okulaia added 17 and Vasco Evtimov contributed 13 off the bench. The aforementioned Haywood - however - did not have his best game, scoring only 1 point on 0-3 shooting, grabbing 0 rebounds, and playing only 24 minutes, as North Carolina was forced to go small to try to match up with Weber State. It did not work for the Tar Heels as Weber State won 76-74 to advance to the second round.
Weber State would meet the Florida Gators in the second round. The Gators that year were lead by Eddie Shannon, Kenyan Weeks and Major Parker in the backcourt, with Brent Wright and Greg Stoltin the front court. Interestingly, the bench for this team would in time eventually develop to be way more successful that the starters. Names like Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem, and Teddy DuPay filled reserve roles for Florida. Even with all the big names, it was Stolt who came up big for the Gators, pouring in 26 points on 4-5 from three-point range. Teddy Dupay (14) and Weeks (11) were the only other Gators in double digits. Arceneaux was once again unstoppable for the Wildcats, as he scored a game-high 32 points with 9 rebounds (also a game high). But, it wasn't enough for Weber State as Florida advanced, winning 82-74.
Florida would eventually fall to the Gonzaga Bulldogs 73-72 in the Sweet Sixteen, but laid the groundwork for their finals appearance the next year - which I wrote about earlier this tournament. The tournament that year was won by UConn, which defeated Duke 74-77 in St. Petersburg, Florida, behind the stellar play of Richard Hamilton (27 points) and Ricky Moore (13 points) and Khalid el-Amin (12 points). How that Duke team consisting of Elton Brand, Shane Battier, Trajan Langdon, William Avery, Chris Carrawell and Corey Magette didn't win the title is a testament to just how good Richard Hamilton was!
Weber State fell off the next year, finishing 4th in the Big Sky Conference, and thus Arceneaux never made another tournament appearance, finishing his tournament career with a 34 points per game average.
Arceneaux went undrafted in the 2000 draft, and bounced around professionally playing in Argentina, Australia, France, Portugal, the Phillipines, Venezuela, Mexico, and various minor US leagues. He played for the Utah Snowbears of the American Basketball Association in 2004-2005 where he scored 42 in the championship game (Dude could SCORE!) before making his way later that year to Marinos de Anzoategui in the Venezuelan league, which he also led to a tile.
He is now VP of From the Ground Up Records, whose artists include Mullage (Trick'n), Mr. Magic and They Boyz Next Door featuring Maie Ray - none of whom I have ever heard of. (These last two paragraphs have been brought to you by Wikipedia, and all of its cites therein).
Trivia Answer: Once. 2008. Kansas, Memphis, North Carolina, UCLA. Kansas Jayhawks. Mario Chalmers of Kansas. Interestingly, that Final Four was also in San Antonio, Texas.
HAVE A GREAT FINAL FOUR EVERYBODY!
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